The Bakura Challenge
by The Quote Bandit
Summary: A challenge to myself to write copious amounts of Bakura-related stories.
1. Start

**I'm popping these things out like a rabbit pops out babies. Jeez. **

**It's procrastination. I really don't want to do my homework, and I've been craving to write. Since I gave up roleplaying (stupid, stupid Neopets…), this pretty much all that's left. xD**

**Anyway, I'm challenging myself to do something (well, many things). I wish to challenge myself to write 50 (number might go up, but it will be at least 50) one-shots of Bakura via various word prompts that hopefully the people commenting (hopefully YOU) will give me. =) Some will be humorous; some will be serious. This first one is one of those serious ones, I suppose.**

**I'm probably going to try and do this for Wheel of Time (if any of you know Wheel of Time xD) for Olver. Because Olver needs love.**

**I'm making up the first prompt, so it is, of course, "Start." Aren't I imaginative? **

Ryou Bakura had always been fascinated with the occult.

His mother had always wondered why, and Amane had always told him he was a weirdo head for getting into that sort of thing (then she would tell him how he was going to turn all emo-goth on her), but he couldn't help it. The idea of ghosts, zombies, and other undead things was just so exciting to his young imagination that he was almost completely sure they existed.

Spirits were what he liked the most. Much more subtle than zombies and just as frightening. Ghosts could watch you when you don't even know they're there, and almost all ghost stories told of how spirits were stuck on the earth, bound by whatever unfinished business they had left. He wanted nothing more than to find an earth-bound spirit, to talk to it, console it as it tried to finish matters and leave the world of the living.

That's why Bakura loved the present his father sent him. He always liked it when his father sent him gifts from his expeditions in Egypt, but this one even more so. The Millennium Ring was beautiful, for one, with its gold tassels that made clinking sounds and the big Egyptian eye in the middle. Not to mention it could be worn around his neck, so he could keep it with him at all times.

But the best part about the Ring was not the gold, but the history (or legend) about it. His father told him supposedly an evil spirit was locked inside of the Ring, sealed away for unleashing something horrible, waiting to get out.

How it excited him! Though he could tell his father didn't believe in it, Bakura hoped he could help the spirit. He was sure if he could just talk to this "evil" spirit, he could make him see good. Maybe he could even help the spirit move on to whatever was next after death.

For years he wore the Ring. In those years Bakura would talk to the Ring, hoping to coax it out. He would tell the spirit about what was important in his life, his opinions, just how his family drove him crazy; things like that. Sometimes he would even bring up things about Egypt to see if that would get a response. The Ring never talked back, but that didn't stop him. He felt as if someone was listening, that someone was keeping him company.

For him, that was enough.

**I must mention how I hate being forced to say "they're there" even if it is grammatically correct. Damn you, homonyms. **

**And yes, this was set pre-show/pre-manga. Probably should've mentioned that before.**


	2. Poke

**Once again. Rabbits.**

**Anyway, this is inspired partially by the fact that all of my younger cousins (they are 7, 10, and 13) have had AT LEAST one boyfriend/girlfriend relationship by now. Seriously, I got my first boyfriend at 15! 15!!!!**

**And also inspired by the prompt for this one (given by 1WiththeButterfly), which is "Poke." Gimme more!!!! Prompts, I mean.**

Bakura's first girlfriend was won in the first grade.

"Won" perhaps isn't the correct word for the situation; "forced upon him" might be a better phrase. Regardless of wording, it was a rather embarrassing experience that Bakura often wished had never happened.

By now he couldn't even recall the girl's name (Michi? Mikki? Some "Mi" name.). But he could recall how they had met. It was the third day of school, Bakura sitting in his desk trying, as usual, not to be noticed. The teacher was explaining how to multiply, and he was trying to listen. That's when it happened.

_Poke._

Bakura jumped approximately 20 feet in the air as he felt someone shoving their finger in his back. A couple of kids around him giggled. The teacher, miraculously, didn't notice. Red filling his cheeks, he turned his head around.

Sitting behind him was _her._ She wasn't the prettiest girl in the world, but then again, he wasn't even near passing the age where girls weren't the grossest thing on the planet. She certainly wasn't pretty at the moment, frowning at him the way she was now. She didn't say anything. Frowning back, he started to turn around.

"Your hair is pretty. You're my boyfriend now, okay?" she whispered. She tugged a lock of his hair for emphasis.

"No," he said quickly, shaking his head so his hair could come free. He had no idea what a boyfriend was, but he didn't want to be one if it involved people tugging on his hair. She pursed her lips sulkily, but did not pursue the subject. Class continued.

Then came lunch time. Bakura opted to enjoy his juice box in the corner of the room, away from everyone else. He hadn't made any new friends in his three days at school, and he didn't want to start now. The girl decided otherwise.

"Hey, you're my boyfriend now. You have to sit with me," the girl said, angrily sitting next to him. He edged away from her as fast as he could, but she just followed him without saying a word. He glared at her.

"I'm not your boyfriend!" he protested.

The girl shook her head. "Yes you are! You're my boyfriend because you have really pretty hair," she explained slowly, as if explaining that trees were green.

"But I don't want to be a boyfriend!"

"Why not?"

"Because you're a girl!"

"That's the point."

Bakura was so confused. He didn't even know this girl; why was she doing this? How was her being a girl the point? What was a boyfriend, anyways? He supposed he could ask her, but that would be too embarrassing. Instead he chose to not say anything and just sucked on his juice box.

This plan seemed to work out well. Eventually the girl got bored with talking to someone who wouldn't talk back to her, and after 15 minutes and many pointed glares, she left him to eat his lunch in peace.

The girl didn't talk to him for the rest of the day. Bakura took this as a blessing, and left for home in a good mood.

Once he got home, he immediately questioned the first female he met when he got home what a boyfriend was. In this case, it was Amane.

"It means you looooooove the girl you're the boyfriend to, and she loooooooves you back, because she's your girlfriend," Amane explained, giggling a little.

"But I don't love her," Bakura said. Amane decided to respond with the "K-I-S-S-I-N-G" song. Groaning, Bakura retreated to his room.

The next day he returned to school dreading seeing the girl. What if she tried to do any boyfriend-girlfriend stuff with him? He shivered at the thought.

Instead, she gave him a note before they sat down in their desks. Frowning, he took it and read it.

_You broke my heart, so I'm breaking up with you. It's over._

Bakura stared at the note for a little longer, trying to comprehend it. What had he done? He supposed this was a good thing, but she was mad at him now. He tried asking her. She sniffed and refused to talk to him.

"Girls are weird," he mumbled before turning away from her. He tried to put the whole ordeal out of his mind, but he still couldn't help thinking. What _had _he done?

**I'm really not sure if I like how this turned out, but oh well. Review? Give me more prompts? Please?**


	3. Monopoly

**Eek!**

**In about 5-10 days I will be getting the OFFICIAL Yu-Gi-Oh character guide FROM Japan.**

**I've finally crossed the fangirl line, I suppose. Damnit. (You could say I've been in denial. Even though I write and read fanfiction. -_-'. REALLY deep denial.)**

**Anyways, once I get it, this mystery of whether or not Amane Bakura really did die (at least for me) will be solved. For now I'm EXTREMELY skeptical about this whole thing, since her death is NEVER mentioned in manga or anime. Course, Amane really isn't EVER mentioned (save for that one letter), but still.**

**So yes, prompt is "Monopoly." Gah, there were SO many things I wanted to do with is. I might write some of them, just because. This one is the closest thing to the prompt, though. =)**

**I really need to stop talking so much in my AN.**

**READ. REVIEW. GIVE PROMPT. **

Sometimes, when Bakura was stuck inside his soul room for extensive periods of times, he played Monopoly.

He'd found the game the second time he'd been locked up inside it (the first time he was too busy trying to get out to really look around). It had been hidden under the bed. It was the old, classic version; no cat, dog, nor dinosaurs were going to be the theme of _his _game, thank you very much. He'd been delighted when he found it, for Monopoly was one of his favorite board games.

The thing about Monopoly that appealed to (and amused) him the most was how impossible the goal was. The goal of the game is to own everything on the board, and to do that you have to buy everything your opponent owns (or stop him from getting any property, which is next to if not impossible), which your opponent won't sell willingly, since he's going for the same goal. Basically, you either had to change the goal (such as getting a certain amount of money) or play on forever.

Bakura knew all of this. Thus he knew, when he dragged the game out from under his soul room's bed, that he had found an excellent time waster when escape was obviously not an option. Playing Monopoly, he found, was a way to keep him from being bored and, most importantly, keep him sane.

He wasn't exactly sure who he played against. It might be the Spirit (although why the Spirit would bother to play was beyond him). It might also just be himself, or another part of his mind. He worried about the last one; if he could play a game with himself, did that mean he was going mad? Bakura tried not to think to hard about that.

Regardless of who was playing, _someone_ moved a piece and bought property. He never caught it rolling the die or giving the money, but he would blink and see the little silver car move a couple places, the money pile off to the side growing larger or smaller. Then it would be his turn.

When he first started playing, he'd been winning. His winning streak had been rather short lived, now. For quite some time now, he was losing. Miserably.

Not that he minded, of course. Monopoly was, after all, just a game. Nothing more. And games, as everyone knows, don't mean anything.

**Will edit later, so it'll be better. Had to upload this in a rush because I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD SUCKAS!!!!!! =)**


	4. Cookie

**Go to my Deviantart journal (0confuzzled0 . deviantart . com/journal/) ****if you wish to learn more about my investigation of the Amane-dead-thing. (My character guide came in.) =) **

**So, funny thing about this one-shot. It's placed during episode 220 (where they finally pop out of Memory World), and since it's one of my favorite scenes, I wanted to do it justice. So I began writing. What I wrote was quite good, if I say so myself. It was witty, just descriptive enough, not boring, good wording and transitions; good writing, basically. One problem. Half way through writing I realized that what happened in my little thing wasn't going to end up lining up with canon without some awkward transitions.**

**So I had to start over. It took me two days to realize this, one more day to actually grasp it, and three MORE days to force myself to put aside that amazing writing and start from scratch. **

***sigh***

**Prompt is ****Cookie****.**

**And, on a side note, I JUST GOT 62,000 POINTS IN ROBOT UNICORN ATTACK!111!1!!!1!!1!1 I has the gaming skills, yes?**

The wind was, with all honesty, just trying to be helpful. After all, the wind had only Ryou Bakura's best interests in mind. The wind just wanted to give Ryou Bakura a hand, that's all. You see, Ryou Bakura was lying unconscious on some cold stone steps, and if Ryou Bakura stayed there any longer, Ryou Bakura might get a nasty krink in his back.

Thus the wind, enlisting the help of a sharp rock, picked up and gently dropped said rock right between Bakura's eyes. Needless to say, this woke him up. Groaning, he shifted so he was lying on the wall behind him and sitting on the steps. Immediately he wished he hadn't. His head hurt like hell (which he assumed was from falling and hitting his head on stone), he was tired to his bone, and his stomach was trying to tear and gnaw its way out of his abdomen. He was used to feeling tired or hungry after the Spirit took over for long periods of time, but this was something else entirely. He felt as if he could curl up and fall asleep right now (he seriously considered this). And afterwards die of starvation.

Bakura closed his eyes again, wishing he could just go back to being not awake. In that same instant of self pity he heard talking (and shouting) from down below. The voices sounded familiar…Jounouchi and Yugi? Maybe he could get some answers (such as, what on earth was going on?). With a final groan he pulled himself up and stumbled down the stairs.

Whatever had been going on before stopped as soon as everyone saw him. He could feel their gaze pressing onto him. It didn't feel friendly.

"Hey, it's you!" Jounouchi accused, and it was an accusation. Of course, they thought he was the Spirit. Figures, seeing how almost every time they saw him nowadays he was possessed. Normally he would be insulted, but right now he was too damn tired to care or even really notice. There were more important things to occupy the limited amount of brain power working right now.

"Where…where are we?" Bakura asked before he could fall over. Which was about how he felt like right about now. God he was hungry.

Jounouchi blinked. If Bakura had been paying attention he would've seen realization dawn on him. "Hang on a second, you don't remember?" he said after a moment.

Bakura thought this over for a second. What did he remember?

"Let's see…I remember being chased by something and hearing a strange voice, and then –"

That was as far as he got. His legs gave out from beneath him, and he fell down the last few steps. Something kept him from falling face first into the ground. He realized rather quickly it was Jounouchi. He opened his mouth to defend himself and closed it again. There wasn't really anything he could say to make this less...awkward.

"What's wrong?" Yugi asked from somewhere behind him. Bakura could've told him right then exactly what was wrong: he was bone tired because the Spirit possessing him seemed to not eat or rest, so he probably hadn't slept or eaten in days. Plus, he still had a headache.

"I'm hungry," was what he said, instead. There were some more words said, but he couldn't make them out. By that point he was out like a light.

**Lol, Bakura's a bit OOC, but oh well. He's allowed to be a little sarcastic sometimes, right?**

**And I would like to point out that THIS episode is the ONLY episode I like better in the English version than the Japanese. **


	5. Goldfish

**So, I can give a lot of excuses as to why I was months upon months late. Each of them would be more convincing than the last, have no doubt about that.**

**However, the main reason for me not going on with my self-imposed challenge is that I fell out of the interest for the fandom. I lost interest in Yu-Gi-Oh and never really had the time to get back into it when a spark of interest returned. Now that we're a month into summer, though, I felt I ought to at least continue with it. Hopefully this will help me get back into the fandom.**

**And in the Amane-related news, I am now 80% sure she DID die due to a car accident, since my character guide mentions a car accident and it says Amane went away or something like that, which could mean she died. I didn't see any mention of the mother, though. Once again, my Japanese is limited, so I could've gotten this wrong.**

**And in FIC related news, I've decided to call young Bakura by his first name from now on. This is partially because I feel like it, and partially because I want to differentiate between young and…less young…and I might mess with stuff later. I don't know. I'll edit my previous chapters later accordingly.**

**Prompt is ****Goldfish.**** Yes, I am using your prompt, SkywardShadow. =)**

The fish was beautiful.

Ryou squashed his face up against the aquarium's glass wall in an attempt to get as close a look as he could to the fish. With his eyes so near he could pick out the individual veins and spines running through its fins, the small red and yellow and black scales gleaming ever so slightly, the faint glint in the large eye staring right back at him. He felt that, as he studied the fish closely, that he could just barely see the muscles smoothly ruffling underneath its skin. In the sheer wonder of it all, Ryou let his jaw drop slightly.

Within a few seconds his breath completely fogged up the glass, much to his disappointment. He swore he saw the fish smirk at him through the fog.

With a sigh he turned away; he couldn't see the fish anymore. Instead, he went to his mother. She was standing a couple feet over, peering over a shelf full of cat food, frowning to herself. Ryou tugged lightly on her blouse to get her attention. She didn't notice him at first. He waited.

"This one's cheaper, but…Hm?" she started, finally realizing Ryou was there. "What is it, Ryou?" she asked, not really taking her attention away from the cat food.

"Can we buy that fish?" he asked timidly, pointing in the direction of the fogged up tank. He thought he saw the fish smile a little. He could feel it smiling, anyway, in an amused, yet hopeful manner. It made sense; he had an opportunity to leave the shop, but it came from a shy little boy. Ryou did his best to ignore the fish.

"Sweetie, we already have a cat," his mother sighed, leaning down slightly to study a new shelf of different cat food. "We don't need any more."

"I don't want another cat," he defended. "We don't have a fish."

"Fish need a tank and many, many accessories, not to mention other fish, otherwise it would be lonely."

"Let's get more than one fish, then. As long as he's one of them."

"They're very dull, fish. I don't think you want one. All they do is swim, look pretty, and poop," his mother refuted. Ryou wasn't going to be put off.

"I don't think they're dull. And what if I want something pretty?"

"'Something pretty?' Honestly, you're going to become worse than Amane if you aren't careful."

"Please?"

"No, Ryou. We don't have the time or resources to take care of an aquarium." She finally turned away from her price comparisons to give him a very level look. "That's final, no arguments."

Ryou didn't have anything more to say to that. Sulkily, he slipped away to the fish tank, leaving his mother to her cat food.

He settled back into his position next to the fish. The fog was no longer obscuring his view, yet Ryou couldn't quite figure out what it was thinking anymore. Was it sad? Angry? Did is simply not care? He made a noise of frustration in his throat.

"Why do you want this fish so bad? It's kinda boring looking," Amane questioned, coming up from behind him. Ryou was rather proud of himself; he barely even jumped in surprise.

"What are you talking about? He's beautiful!" Ryou protested with indignation. He flourished a hand. "Plus, he's really smart." As he concentrated on Amane, he could feel the fish swell with pride. A quick glance back, however, proved him wrong; the fish hadn't changed at all. Frowning, he turned back to his sister.

She snorted. "Fish aren't smart; they're stupid, stupid!"

Ryou bristled, but said nothing more. He knew Amane. He knew she would never be able to see what was so amazing about the fish, no matter how hard he tried to explain. And it always seemed that way. The harder he tried to explain something to people, the less they understood what he was trying to explain to them. It was a frustrating trend, but one he was used to. So, instead of arguing, he turned back to the fish in an attempt to find the emotions the fish was trying so hard to hide from him. Why was he trying to hide them?

"If you want the fish so badly, why don't you just take it?" Amane grumbled after a minute, unhappy that her brother had decided to ignore her.

"I can't. Mom said so," he sighed.

"So? It's easy, just reach in and grab it."

A bolt of terror shot through him. "Wait, Amane, we can't do that, it'll die out of water!" he said quickly. As he looked away, he felt his terror fill the fish.

"Then you get a bag, stupid," Amane explained, dashing away momentarily. Before Ryou could really comprehend what had happened, Amane came back with a large fish bag in her grasp. He opened his mouth to ask her if she was going to do something stupid, but before he could say anything his sister, dear, impulsive sister, shoved her hands into the aquarium and, with the bag, scoped the fish up. (Ryou was more than a little surprised that she had enough dexterity to perform such a feat in such a short time.)

"There," she said with a note of satisfaction in her voice. "Now you have your fish. Take it." She held out the fish to Ryou. He could barely stand to look at it. Out of the corner of his eye he could see it cock its head expectantly (or perhaps in confusion?). He could believe what she had done.

"A-Amane, I don't…," he stuttered, not sure how to fix this.

"Fine then!" she fumed. "I try and do something nice for you, and you totally reject it! Take the stupid fish!" With that she threw the bag at him.

The next part, to Ryou, did not happen in slow motion, but far faster than it should've been. He hadn't even had time to react before he heard a sickening splash on the ground. The bag had emptied itself of its contents onto the floor, including the fish.

With a yelp he fell to the ground, attempting to pick up the fish so he could put it back in the aquarium. Unfortunately his fingers just couldn't seem to grasp it. Every time he picked it up he just dropped it right back on the floor again. Throughout the entire way it just gasped for life. Eventually the fish stopped trying, and ceased to move.

Ryou's eyes widened. He couldn't believe it. The fish wasn't alive anymore, and it was his fault. Not only had he failed to save it, but he sparked the whole incident in the first place. Now he would never figure out why the fish tried so hard to hide its emotions. His eyes felt a little watery.

Their mother, by now, had realized what was going on, and had abandoned her cat food to sort it all out, though Ryou didn't pay too much attention to it. He knew she was scolding both of them (mostly Amane), but he wouldn't be able to tell anyone any details of it. He instead focused on the fish. Eventually his mother made him pick the fish up and give to one of the pet store employees, who said words that could've been either sympathy or scorn (he didn't notice). Even as the fish left his sight forever, he felt as if the spirit had left the fish and stayed with him, swimming just beside his head, just out of sight.

He hoped it wasn't blaming him.

**Turned out different than what I expected (not to mention longer), but I still like it, I think. The ending was difficult as hell to write, but endings always are. Sorry for constantly writing about kid Bakura. I really like to, and I feel like I should map out what he used to be before I can really go for present day stuff. If that makes sense. I might be able to explain better if you ask me. =/**

**YOU KNOW THE DRILL.**


	6. Disturbed

**I think I'm more permanently back in the fandom. Ish. **

**But let's just pretend I never left, excuses be damned.**

**I was planning on writing something more light-hearted because I wanted to write something of Ryou because I'm trying to figure something about Bakura out, and, well…this came out. Yeah.**

**Prompt is Disturbed. From Bakura's Guardian Angel Giant List of Prompts.**

He felt odd.

He knew, or at least he thought he knew, that he should be completely distraught. He should be crying. He shouldn't be able to even look at the coffin and the urn side by side. (There was both a coffin and an urn because his mother had wanted to be cremated, but his sister, when the topic had come up, said she was terrified by the idea and didn't want her body turned into dust because what if she just blew away, never to be found? What if she felt it? No, she couldn't be cremated with her mother. A burial was best.)

And yet there he was, standing in the middle of the funeral, holding his father's hand. They were close to the two past family members, but not near, exactly. They could see them, could even make out the details on the urn and the casket, but they weren't near enough to really feel it, to fully accept it. It didn't make much sense, but there is was.

It didn't feel like they were lost, like anything had changed. It wasn't exactly like he expected to see them when they finally left the funeral for home. He understood that he would never talk to them again. (Unless, of course, they came back as ghosts, but that was assuming many things: one, they wanted to come back, and two, that they could.) He wasn't feeling that sense of loss that he was sure he should be feeling. It was natural that he would never see their faces again. It wasn't that he never considered them worth something, it was just…There wasn't a word for it.

He could feel his father tremble every now and then. He didn't do it much, but when he did he would grip hard on to his hand, as if that was the only thing holding him to anything, a ten year old boy keeping his father from collapsing.

He should feel like that. He should be unhappier than he's ever felt, and yet he wasn't. Just ten minutes ago he'd been playing a board game with his older, 21 year old cousin. He'd seen family members he'd never even known existed. He'd even laughed a couple times at a joke told to him by an aunt or uncle.

But now that he was alone, with his father, he wasn't sure. He didn't feel sad, but he wasn't exactly happy. He wasn't sure. 'Odd', he supposed, really was the best way to explain the way he felt.

"Ryou," his father said suddenly. "Are you…how are you about this? Are you okay?" His voice was carefully controlled.

"I don't know," Ryou replied, because, even if it didn't answer anything in his mind, even if it didn't really answer his father's question, it was the truth.

**This is my way of admitting that the fandom is right about the whole Amane thing. **

**But yeah, I figured this is more or less how that funeral went. Before you write Ryou as a creepy child, this is kind of how my grandma's funeral went for me. She died when I was nine-tenish, and I don't think I ever really felt sad about it, except for maybe at first. It's not that I didn't love her, it's just…I don't know. **

**Point being, you'd have to write both of us off as creepy children. And I don't think I was a creepy child….**


End file.
